


Reenactors, Chapter 5

by SirJosephBanksFRS



Series: Reenactors [5]
Category: Aubrey-Maturin Series - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 08:17:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirJosephBanksFRS/pseuds/SirJosephBanksFRS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the outset of the engagement between the <i>Shannon</i> and <i>Chesapeake</i>, Jack and Stephen find themselves inexplicably on the deck of <i>USS Constitution</i> in Boston two hundred years in the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reenactors, Chapter 5

**_11 June 2013_ **

**_Ignacio Zaragoza is one of the circulation clerks at the public library and is attending Harvard as an undergraduate. He saw Jack come in dressed in his uniform after work and noticing his sabre, challenged him to fence saying that he is in in the fencing club at Harvard and is looking for good sport at any opportunity._**

**_“Why, I am no great hand with a sword, except in a boarding action." Jack answered him, “You should challenge the Doctor here. He is downright wicked with a short-sword and has bested every man he has ever met in combat.” Then he realized too late what he had said and looked at me with a great begging of my pardon in his eyes._ **

**_This young man has Argentine parents, though his mother is a physician who lives in Texas, which is apparently somewhere in the vastness that is America now. He told me that his great great great grandparents were from Spain. I presume they are from Zaragoza in Aragon, which is close to Catalunya but was a den of Moors. He bears a striking resemblance to Muhammad XII of Granada, the last Moorish Sultan in Spain, down to his pointy black beard. He has the general boastful manner of the American youth._ **

**_He said that they had always been great swordsmen in his family and he was continuing their tradition, though to his dismay, Harvard has lost every year for the last three years in some contest with another nearby school called Em Eye Tea, if I understood him correctly. He invited me to meet him at the campus the next day at eleven in the morning. I was ready to refuse and Dr. Beales overheard us and told me that she would be happy to take me to lunch in the staff dining room and give me the medical books she had gotten for me from the medical school’s library. So I was not in the position to refuse. I told him I have no weapons and he said he would be happy to provide them and I could have my pick. I told him I never engage in any contest such as this without their being some type of wager, hoping to dissuade him and he told me that if he should win, I could read his senior thesis on_ Don Quixote de la Mancha _and help him edit it._ **

_**It never occurred to him to wonder what my terms would be. I do not know what to ask of him, given that he is practically a child. Not that I would think of any twenty-one year old man in the Royal Navy in this way, but he comes to work with a box with his supper in it with what appear to be coloured drawings for children on it which he told me was called “Adventure Time,” which he said is his very favourite “cartune,” whatever that may be. It astonishes me when I think of twelve year old dear William Babbington’s adventure time boarding the**_ **Cacafuego** _ **. Perhaps there is something to Jack’s observations about Americans.** _

"Stephen, I do beg your pardon." Jack said as they walked home. "Here I am, laid by the lee again but only because of my affection and esteem for you."

"No apology is needed, my dear. Tis but an annoyance." Stephen said, reading as he walked.

"Could that pup possibly be any hand with a sword?"

"Anything is possible, but I doubt it extremely." Stephen said."I do not apprehend how anyone could have any real skill when they never risk any actual injury. Is such a thing comprehensible to you in the least?"

"No." Jack said. "I suppose it is like Mr. Dupont and his yacht. In a sense, it seems they are playing at what our lives were. I suppose it is the same with horses as well. They can own an entire stable of horses and go ride for a few hours, but they would never ride continuously for days anywhere, even though this country is so vast that it makes a trip from Madeira to Pompey look like crossing London." It was so hot that evening that Jack actually stopped and took his jacket and waistcoat off and loosened his neckcloth. "A tourist was asking me about dueling on the ship today. People in the group laughed at how absurd it was that adult men would fight to the death over a matter of honour. I tried to explain it to them, but it was evident they could not understand. I felt myself grow warm and offended even though it is just their way, they frequently laugh at that they do not understand. But then they accept grievous insult from each other and think nothing of it. I saw a man called a coward and a liar today and he pretended he did not hear." They resumed walking. “They do not duel now and it seems that they have not for nearly one hundred and fifty years. I assume that it is the same in England as well. Not that I was much for it, I only went out when I had no choice in the matter and I could count the number of times on less than both hands, not like you, Stephen. But it do seem rather extreme, to go from demanding satisfaction for an ill look to being slandered before one’s fellows or libeled in a gazette and having no recourse to defend one’s honour.”

"Surely, they have other mechanisms of redress. Perhaps the legal system."

"Stephen, perhaps that is just the thing that makes them so different from us. I hear people talking on the _Constitution_ about how dangerous our lives were, how we were risking our lives all the time to do virtually anything and everything and how we held the value of human life so cheap, which is in my estimation an infamous lie, by the way. But it seems they risk virtually nothing ever and it has made them soft, flabby milksops. They seemingly excel at nothing we excelled at because nothing ventured, nothing gained. They have incredible achievements as you have pointed out but so many of these inventions seem like crutches to me, crippling crutches that virtually geld a man. They are so fearful -- afraid of getting wet, afraid of any discomfort, afraid of any inconvenience, afraid of exerting any effort without immediate reward, afraid of not being entertained, afraid of what they call germs -- what exactly are germs, Stephen?"

"Invisible agents of disease, my dear." Stephen said, thinking of purchasing a pair of shorts and sandals and knowing Jack would be appalled.

"A little boy of about George’s age dropped his biscuit on the clean quarterdeck and picked it up and the mother shrieked as though it had plague or gaol fever and snatched it away from him. I thought to myself, that poor boy is going to grow up afraid of his own shadow." Jack said somberly. "By God, I would rather lose an eye or an arm than to be so fearful of everything. I climbed up to the masthead today and you would have thought I was a thousand feet up, the fuss that was made."

****

**_12 June 2013_ **

**_Dr. Beales took me to dinner at Harvard and after plying her with two and a half glasses of wine on an empty stomach, I succeeded in getting her to relate part of whatever theory it is that she possesses about Jack and myself. Habit and what I suppose is a vicious streak of curiosity were my motivation in doing thus. She did not say anything outright, but I gather she believes me to be a conspirator wanted by the British government, perhaps? I got the distinct impression that she believes my offense to be somehow related to my Irish nationality -- perhaps some Republican activity? None of it made sense to me, but I do not know enough at present about twenty-first century Ireland, and after reading about the Famine, I am not particularly desirous to do much more research. I do not have the stomach for it. Oddly, she was right in many ways but for the wrong reasons. She is extremely perceptive._ **

**_I also had the impression that she believes that Jack and I are engaged in some type of paederastic relations though she did not say so outright, or perhaps this is my_ mens rea _at work. It would seem that paederasty is no longer considered as unnatural now as in the past and perhaps that is why she believes such a thing. There was no disgust nor judgement in her words, if anything a deep respect and appreciation for our friendship, the depth of which it seems is a near unknown entity today, based on her words and what Jack and I have observed. I have no knowledge of why friendship should be so insignificant except that perhaps life has been made so easy now that people cannot be bothered to exert any effort in their personal relations. Perhaps, too, her appreciation of the degree of our friendship is because of her own attachment to her late husband, the similarity in that she and I are both Irish and Jack and her late husband, English. Her husband, John Beales, sounds like he was a very remarkable man. Katharine clearly esteems Jack Aubrey very highly, which increases my affection for her as well._**

**_After dinner, she took me round to two department offices -- one of Catalan language in the Romance Language department in Boylston Hall and one of Celtic Languages and Literature in Barker Center. Katharine has many friends in Boylston Hall as her husband had worked there and she had studied for both graduate and undergraduate degrees there and she introduced me to many people. I already have been given a thesis to read in Catalan for a fee to return in two weeks if possible, with any suggested annotations marked in blue pencil. I also met a professor and graduate students in Irish. People are extremely friendly in general or perhaps it is that she is so well known and respected that her recommendation of me carries much weight. I esteem Harvard University very much from what I have seen of it._ **

**_It is remarkable that so frequently, we would say in London in 1802 that the world is a small place after Jack and I unexpectedly ran into an old_ Sophie _on the street or I would look up as I almost collided with someone I had known at Trinity in Dublin or in Barcelona or in Paris. Amazingly, this quality of the world is just as true now, with the population seven times as great. I was utterly astounded today to be standing in front of the great great great great grandson of Guillaume Dupuytren. I was surprised at how very happy it made me to see him, as though I have not lost all connexion to the “past,” to see Dupuytren’s posterity standing before me, hale and hearty. It certainly makes me think of my own posterity in that regard in a way I never have before. It is one thing to be young with one’s life ahead of one and have a complete healthy disinterest and detachment in whether one ever has any progeny; it is another thing to actually be in that future with no descendent. It is a sobering prospect indeed._ **

**_Katharine invited Jack and myself to meet her at Sullivan’s this Friday night for her dinner break, for it is during something known as the happy hour. She said that there will be plenty of food that the tavern provides gratis for the patrons to encourage their purchase of beverages. I said that we should be happy to meet her there._ **

 

Stephen met Ignacio Zaragoza on the Harvard campus, outside the Widener Library in the green under the trees in front of Weld Hall at eleven a.m., as he had promised. Ignacio was standing with two other young men and an immense pile of fencing equipment -- jackets, breeches, masks, shoes, gloves, foils, épées and sabres.

"We couldn't bring the electric equipment," Ignacio apologized. "It's locked up and I couldn't get the keys. These guys are on the team as well. This is Mike and Jean Baptiste. This is Dr. FitzGerald." Stephen bowed to them and the gesture seemed to almost shock them. "Your choice, Doctor." Stephen looked over the weapons and chose the épée as being closest to the short-sword to which he was accustomed. He examined both of them and frowned, touching the tip.

"There is no edge at all. This would scarce cut cold butter." They laughed, thinking he was joking."What are these buttons?" He said, looking at the épée plastic practice tip, stuck on the end.

"That's the point d'arrêt, to mark the clothes, since we don't have the electrical system to use."

"Ah, I see." Ignacio was suiting up and looked at Stephen and motioned towards the gear.

"You are about my size and there are two of everything."

"My dear, I am not so accustomed so I shall trouble you just for the right glove, if you please."

"You don't wear gear?" Ignacio said, in disbelief.

"It was not the custom when I was a boy." Stephen said. The three young men exchanged glances.

"Whatever floats your boat, dude." Ignacio said, laughing.

"Our wager, Mr. Zaragoza..." Stephen said, dangling the épée from his index finger.

"Oh, yeah, what were you thinking?" Stephen frowned.

"A bottle of wine? A 2011 Château Lafite?" Stephen had consulted Mr. Brown at the library on the way to Harvard that morning and Mr. Brown had recommended it as a not inconsiderable wager to make with Ignacio, whose mother, Mr. Brown opined, was quite rich and very generous.

Jean Baptiste tried to get Ignacio's attention, but Ignacio was already laughing and shaking Stephen's hand on the wager. "Are you certain? It is quite dear. Your friends may be the judges as to the outcome, if there is any doubt."

"I am certain." Ignacio said."Three bouts and JB, you're the President, OK?"

They saluted, stood on the walk as their course and Stephen's eyes became cold and reptilian in concentration and within sixty seconds, the first bout was over and Ignacio was lying on the sidewalk, gasping, Stephen's practice tip embedded in the left shoulder of his jacket.

"Goddamn." Ignacio gasped."Holy shit, how did you do that?"

"It is the way I was taught." Stephen said, irritated."Everyone who went out did so similarly."

"We don't really fence that way here." Ignacio said. Stephen shrugged.

"You resign then?" Ignacio got up off the sidewalk.

"No." The second and third bouts went similarly and Stephen bowed to him when it was all over, after another six minutes had gone by. Ignacio took off his jacket and mask. He looked somewhat dazed and stared at Stephen.

"Sir," Jean Baptiste said, "I am going back to France at the end of the academic year and I am trying out for the 2016 Olympic team there, in fencing. Would you be my sparring partner here? I will pay you for your time. Ninety dollars an hour." His English was heavily accented though grammatically perfect.

"I think not." Stephen said.

"I would come to you, if you wish. I have learned more watching you kick Ignacio's ass today than in the last two years of instruction."

"I am no fencing master, Mister..."

"Dupuytren." At the name, Stephen looked up and stared at the young man in front of him and abruptly switched to speaking French.

"You are a descendant of Guillaume Dupuytren? Could it be?" Stephen said and stared at him harder. Yes, he could make out the resemblance around the mouth, the forehead, the set of the eyes, the way the man looked when concentrating, though the boy certainly was far more amiable than Dupuytren had ever been. There was a definite and striking resemblance between this young man and his old colleague, whom Stephen had known when Dupuytren was even younger than this boy. They had kept up more or less over the years and it made Stephen irrationally happy to see this descendant six generations removed before him, tying him to what he thought of as reality, life two hundred years ago in 1813, where poor Dupuytren was, Stephen had last heard, engaged dealing with Buonaparte's haemmorhoids, rumour had it. Unfortunately for Dupuytren, the rumour was all too true. "Costive tendencies," Stephen thought, “a classic sanguine bilious encephalo-lymphatic as well, no doubt. The villain, it is no wonder, I suppose...”

"I am shocked, Monsieur Docteur. No one in America has ever heard of my great great great great grandfather unless they are a hand surgeon." Dupuytren said, smiling.

"What are you studying here?"

"Public policy. I will split the cost of your bottle of wine with Ignacio. He has no idea it is four hundred dollars. Or you may have a bottle of my father's 2008, which is even better. Do you know my father? He is a physician as well, in Paris. Guillaume Paul Dupuytren."

"I have had neither the honour nor the pleasure." Stephen said. "I should be most gratified to spar with you, Dupuytren." He looked up and saw Katharine on a bench watching them "Please to let Mr. Zaragoza know when it would be convenient for you, so he may tell me. Now I must go, Dr. Beales is waiting." Stephen said and bowed to the three of them.

"God and Mary to you, Katharine,” Stephen said to her in Irish, “My dear, have I kept you waiting long?" He said, taking the books from her and then her hand.

"No, not at all. I arrived in time to see you teach Ignacio a lesson twice." She said and smiled. She stood and without thinking, he took her arm and they walked to the staff dining room. "I had no idea you were so accomplished."

"It is nothing but a matter of experience. We did not wear those garments when I was a boy learning, so there was a very strong incentive to develop the habit of seizing one's opportunity."

They went in and were seated and Stephen looked around at the large, pleasant room, the walls hung with oil portraits of Harvard luminaries, large potted ficus trees by the floor length windows.

"This is a most remarkable institution, Katharine, dear. Very august and filled with so many fascinating people. What treasures you must handle every day." He said, looking greedily at the books she had brought him.

“Trinity must be much the same, no?”

“In a manner of speaking, I suppose.” He said, wondering how changed it must be.

“The fish is always good.” She said looking at the menu. They ordered the filet of sôle and a bottle of sauvignon blanc.

"You seem to have a great many friends here. People stop in all night to see you at Bunker Hill and you have many friends here at Harvard as well.” He said, looking at the people who had waved to her as they were seated.

"I do, because I do patron services. I remember what people care about and I help them and so they remember me. I guess that is rare in this day and age. Brian is very much the same way, but perhaps in a more obnoxious way with his jokes.”

"Brian told me I should go birdwatching with you on Cape Cod." She laughed.

"I apologize for him, Stephen. He is dying to pair me off so I won't keep ruining our table for eight at Uffizi. He and Hillary should be professional matchmakers." She said shaking her head. “Watch out, they will have Jack and you married off by next year.” The waiter brought them their wine, a nondescript California sauvignon blanc and poured them each a glass.

"I should very much like to go birdwatching with you, if you please." Her eyes became extremely sad.

"Stephen, I have not gone in years. I shall give you a copy of the book I wrote, if you would like. It's on the rare birds of New England."

"I should like that of all things. You are a lifelong Bostonian?”

“Yes. I went to Boston Latin for secondary school, do you know it?”

“No, I am afraid not."

“Our most famous alumnus was Benjamin Franklin, but he dropped out.” She said, smiling.

“I take it you studied the classics there? That’s why you do not look at me strangely if I happen to mention something from the _Aeneid_.” He said, thinking how this made her unique of people he had met in the twenty-first century, none of whom seemed to know any classical literature. Any reference, aphorism or word was lost on them. He had quickly learned to strike them from his speech as much as possible.

“Yes. It was fortunate, because my husband was a classics scholar. Then I went to Harvard.”

“What did you study here?"

"Romance languages, concentrating in French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian. I did junior year abroad in São Paulo. I got a full time job in Widener Library on campus when I graduated and went to library school at Simmons College and got my MSLS and I’ve been here ever since. I started working for Boston Public in 1991. I know I’m incredibly lucky. People come here from all over the world and this is my hometown.”

"Brian said your husband was English and a professor here?"

“Yes. John had a PhD from Oxford and he taught here in the Classics department. He was an authority on Herodotus and Greek naval warfare. especially the Battle of Salamis. He actually worked on the project to recreate the trireme and crewed in the trials of it, the Olympias.”

"Where in England was he from?"

"They were from Dorset, but they lived in London. His family had a lot of money. He was a bit of the black sheep, too into scholarship. He'd gone to Harrow and then Oxford. His parents wanted him to go to Balliol and to be a politician and he chose Christ Church. They were unhappy that he fell in love with classics, they said he would amount to nothing but being a schoolmaster. I don't think they were at all happy that he came to America, they are rather prejudiced against Americans. They were even less happy that he married me. Even Harvard did not impress them. His sister told me any fool with money could get a degree in America from any school. There is a grain of truth in that. I had no counter argument, because if I tried to say anything, she would say “George W. Bush” and of course, I couldn’t even defend my own institution."

“Why George W. Bush?”

“Because he was the president of the United States and widely reputed to be of very dubious intellect, to be gracious about it, and a graduate of both Harvard and Yale. But John’s family are not intellectuals, for that matter. John was brilliant. He won the Distinguished Teaching award for Harvard College twenty-four years ago, in 1989. He was ten years older than me and he was the youngest professor to ever get such an honour. He was one of the youngest professors ever offered tenure.” He refilled her wine glass. "We had been married ten years in 2006 after a courtship of three years. He got sick, in 2005. They thought it was diabetes first and then it became evident that it was something much worse, worse than anything either of us had ever heard of or imagined. John got worse and worse and our lives were nothing but trips to Mass General, back and forth. It has been three years since he died and I still miss him every single day.” She said and the deep sadness was in her eyes again, deeper still.

“What illness did he have, Katharine dear?”

“Something called Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia, Type I. It’s cancer of the endocrine system. Any endocrine tissue can be affected but the pancreas, thymus, adrenal glands, pituitary, and parathyroid are the most commonly affected. It’s a genetic condition.” She looked away from him.

“I am so very sorry, Katharine.” He said, looking at her and took her hand in his. He had never seen anyone grief-stricken in the twenty-first century. From what he had observed, it seemed as though no one died any more. There was no public evidence of death anywhere that he had seen -- no crêpe at the door, no mourning clothes nor armbands nor hatbands, no funeral corteges and he had not seen a contemporary cemetery in Boston, only historic ones. Katharine’s grief made her seem more like one of his and Jack’s contemporaries. She wore no mourning, but her mien was that of a woman mourning a beloved husband. There was a silence between them and finally he broke it, saying, "You seem to have constructed a theory about Jack and myself from the day you first met us." She smiled and said nothing. "Tell me, I shan't take offense, I swear to you. You have been so very kind, Katharine.” She was reluctant, clearly and he poured her another glass of wine. “Please do tell. I absolutely swear by all that is holy that I shall not be offended. I could not be offended by you; you have been so extremely kind.” She looked up at him, started, hesitated and started again.

"You are not from Ulster, so you're not a British subject."

"Mmm." He said, noncommittally.

"But you chose to be in the Royal Navy."

"Yes."

"You were a medical doctor, so you could get a job virtually anywhere."

"How did you know I am a medical doctor?" He said, frowning at her.

"Because you have too much education to be anything else as a medical officer in the Navy. I have heard Jack call you Doctor many times. And your reading material as well." She said, looking at the stack of books she had gotten for him from the medical school's library.

"Ah." It had been all too facile. He frowned at his own carelessness, not, he supposed that it really mattered, but it troubled him still. Cicero came to mind: _consuetudo quasi altera natura effici_. His carelessness had cost him dearly in Mahón. He could not afford carelessness to ever become second nature.

"And you became a medical officer in the Royal Navy to serve with Jack."

"And why do you think that?"

"Because that is the only conceivable reason I can think of for an Irish doctor with your degree of education to end up in the Royal Navy."

"Because of my friendship with Jack?"

"Yes. Am I wrong?"

"No." He sighed. "And the rest?"

"You are stuck here. You cannot go back to Ireland or to England. You cannot leave America."

"Why?"

"Well, that's the part that I was taught not to talk about growing up. In this part of Ireland,” She said, laughing, “they say, _Chun fáisnéiseoirí báis_ , because there is nothing South Boston hates more than an informer. Nothing.”

“Strong words.” Stephen said, parsing her words and her Munster accent -- classic County Cork, he thought, probably Americanized Skibbereen and he found himself translating it first to English instead of his own Connaght Irish: ”Death to informers.” She would not have betrayed anyone, he thought, had she been there then, not under pain of transport or death. He could see that plainly in her eyes. In that moment, she seemed so very Irish to him and indeed, straight as a rush. What a strange thought to be having two hundred and fifteen years after the Uprising, he thought, as though his mind were swinging wildly through time, there being almost no definitive "now," just points spreading across the fabric of time.

“We do not get into specifics and then there is no problem should anyone come asking." Katharine said.

"I see. Is that the end of your theory?"

"Not exactly."

"So tell me more." Stephen said, leaning back in his chair and smiling.

"Jack will not leave you."

"He has no papers either, for the moment." Her eyes softened and widened. "You do not believe that?"

"I think it is more complicated. I think he does not want to compromise you. He should be in England in the hospital and instead he is here with you."

"So you think he would give me away somehow by going home?"

"Yes, but I think more than that, he would never leave you, Stephen."

"And why is that?" She coloured slightly."If you please, do tell."

"Because you are closer than any two people I have ever seen or known. Your friendship is so unusual in this day and age. I have only known you a very short time, but that much is obvious to me. Maybe it’s because you not Americans. Men of my acquaintance in general seem to have extremely superficial relationships, even their closest friendships and marriages. They are habitually tuned out all the time. They can barely focus on anyone long enough to answer a question, let alone have a conversation, let alone be with anyone all the time without some technological distraction; games or email or IM-ing or social networking. Technology is the great god in their lives. They are literally plugged in from the moment they open their eyes until they go to sleep with their smart phone under their pillows. If they are at home, it is to watch sports on television.The way you talk to each other, the way you look at each other, the fact that neither of you is constantly checking an iPhone to check out if something better is about to come along, the way you are together is the antithesis of that. You don't even have a phone, maybe because the only person you want to talk to is Jack." He sat mulling her words over. The complexity of the tissue of lies he had told over the previous twelve days, the difficulty in not understanding some of the words and phrases she used and her overall perspicacity left him exhausted. People were apparently different now and the quality of his and Jack's relations marked them as obviously somehow very different."How long have you and Jack been friends?"

"Thirteen years."

“How many ships have you served on with him?" Stephen did some addition.

"Seven, more or less," He said, not counting _Java_ and _La Flèche_.

"Have you ever served with anyone else?"

"No."

"And you left when he retired?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"Is your naval career over?"

"So it would appear." He smiled. "My dear, Jack is my very dearest friend in the world. He has quite literally saved my life many times, too many times for me to even remember. He has nursed me back from the brink of death as I have him. I esteem him more highly than any man I have ever known. I am very attached to Jack, obviously; extremely attached to Jack. As I told you, he was very happily married to a lovely gentlewoman and I was about to marry his wife's cousin, Diana Villiers and things did not work out. So things are, perhaps, not quite as simple as they might appear.” She coloured and changed the subject.

“You speak Irish and Catalan, yes? I recall you telling me that. I can introduce you to people in those departments, if you’re interested. I know people are always looking for thesis readers. It’s freelance, but it pays well.”

“That is so very kind of you. I should like that of all things."

 


End file.
